Save the flamingo, Florida’s iconic — and native — bird | Editorial

By Sun Sentinel Editorial Board

Jul 22, 2018 | 6:25 AM

In lawns across America, plastic pink flamingos have not just survived, but thrived. What a shame the same can’t be said for Florida’s real flamingos, those rare elegant leggy, long-necked lovelies that only recently won official blessing as a native species.

It’s almost impossible to fathom that the iconic bird most-linked to the Sunshine State actually lived much of the last century bearing the label of a “non-native.” That error was finally rectified this spring when scientists published a paper agreeing the pink showstopper was native, just hard to spot after 1900. Their work, published in the American Ornithological Society’s journal The Condor, finally provided an answer that led the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to erase the non-native label on its website this spring.

Advertisement

Now it’s time for Florida and federal officials to band together to protect, manage and promote our favorite bird’s fortunes. A federal or state listing as a threatened or endangered native species is the first needed step to help their numbers expand beyond zoos, parks and postcards.

The odds are not good, though, given Thursday’s announcement that the Trump administration plans to roll back key provisions of the Endangered Species Act, the landmark 1973 law designed to prevent the extinction of declining species.

The rollback is part of the president’s promise to reduce government regulations on businesses and landowners. It would end the practice of giving threatened species the same protections as endangered species. It would end the requirement that endangered species be protected no matter the costs. And it would weaken the penalties for wantonly killing migratory birds.

Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt promises endangered animals and plants would still be protected, but the changes would simplify how the law is used. “Some of our regulations were promulgated back in 1986, and frankly a great deal has been learned.”

Environmentalists see it differently. “If these regulations had been in place in the 1970s, the bald eagle and the gray whale would be extinct today,” Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Washington Post.

Right now, flamingos are not considered to be endangered. To even be protected, Florida first had to consider the bird native. And until this year, the state’s official position was that if spotted, flamingos must have escaped from some domestic flocks or wandered in from Mexico, Cuba or the Bahamas.

But the banding of a single flamingo in Florida Bay changed all that. It relayed information about the bird’s non-traveling habits. And it helped convince scientists that Florida is, indeed, a native home to flamingos, just not a friendly one.

Blame the American flamingos demise on ladies’ stylish hats in the 1800s, festooned with feathers. Hunters decimated the Florida flocks, sold the plumes and ate the birds. That practice pretty much wiped out the flamingos.

The birds — well known from starring in the 1980s opening credits of Miami Vice — can be seen relaxing at Hialeah Park's racetrack and in zoos. Of course, they also decorate popular drink swizzle sticks and an abundance of motels and restaurants use flamingo logos.

Yet wild flamingo sightings are rare. The Dry Tortugas National Park hosted a lone flamingo not long ago, and a flock regularly visits a stormwater treatment area in West Palm Beach. Even on the west coast of Florida, a lone flamingo drove birding enthusiasts wild as it played in 2016 on beaches in Ft. Myers, leading Audubon fans to plead with photographers to avoid getting too close.

Florida has plenty of reasons to promote its newfound native bird. The tourist industry needs all the help it can get to attract travelers in search of what many think populates the entire state. Standing tall on its lithe legs, the feathered beauty is a perfect foil for the greenish toxic runoff dirtying beaches on both sides of the state from Lake Okeechobee releases. Protecting the flamingo can help the state redeem its reputation, at least a bit.

The birds, after all, have attracted tourists for years. Even the nation’s most famous ornithologist, John James Audubon, saw flamingos in 1832 near Indian Key, an island off Islamorada, in the Upper Keys. He wrote, “Ah! reader, could you but know the emotions that then agitated my breast!” Moreover, he said that seeing the birds “reached the height of all my expectations, for my voyage to the Floridas was undertaken in great measure for the purpose of studying these lovely birds in their own beautiful islands.”